A couple of years ago, and after experiencing a devastating series of personal losses, my partner and I decided to seek out both spirituality and community via a local church. But being more progressive than not, and an interracial couple in our 40's, that ruled out a lot of churches. But after some light research, we agreed that our local Unitarian Universalist or "UU" church might be a good fit as it seemed more liberal than conservative. However, after attending services for roughly 8 months and joining a potluck group for several, we ended up having a set of experiences that left us deeply unimpressed with the culture of the/our UU church, making our decision not to become members easy and obvious.
To further explain, during the very first service we attended, we were thrilled to hear abortion referred to as healthcare, but dismayed by the utter lack of diversity or the demographics of the congregation which skew almost completely elderly (65+) and caucasian - despite being right next to a medium-sized (135k population-wise) and very diverse city. Nevertheless, recognizing the truth of MLK Jr's words about Sundays at 11 am being the most segregated time in America (but why the age issue?), we agreed to be open-minded and continued to attend services.And while we enjoyed the music and found the lifespan or children's director's sermons simply joyful as he tended to focus on both self-awareness and resilience, we found the actual minister's sermons lacking. For, they were so focused on "social justice issues" or what we could do/should do for others, the idea that we (and others for that matter) might also be in pain/looking for more inner peace or coming for spiritual sustenance ourselves seemed to get lost. Instead, we listened to what felt like superior/condescending sermon after superior/condescending sermon about either "educating" (conservatives) or "supporting" others (POC/LGBTQ/Immigrants).
Worse, coffee hours meant that we were also forced to contend with the various members' "social justice" preoccupations. For instance, one especially obnoxious member (the Blowhard from here on out) who clearly viewed himself as an "activist" (as opposed to the clueless and self-righteous volunteer/retiree he actually is) kept approaching us about the issue of voter rights for folks convicted of felonies. And while we would vaguely decline to get involved, I regret not asking him (or any of these very old, very caucasian, and very middle and upper-middle class UU members) if they'd had ANY personal and/or professional experiences with convicted felons. Because, unlike them, I have. A lot. Both personal and professional. As a result, I know that felons don't generally tend to be very civic-minded, something that MIT's political science department has confirmed by tracking voting patterns for convicted felons still allowed to vote in both ME and VT. And given the opportunity to vote - while still in prison even - they have overwhelmingly opted not to. Hell, only 64% of Americans voted in the 2024 Presidential election, so what made the Blowhard so sure that the majority of felons, of all people, are so desperate to vote?!
My guess or sense based on experience? He, like many of these old and caucasian "liberals" had never really been around folks convicted of felonies, and certainly not many folks unlike themselves in terms of both race and class. And, as a result, he was incapable of really reflecting on this issue in a grounded way. Nor had he been able to develop any true instincts for social justice work or a sense of what efforts might be more meaningful than not. Instead, he'd just hopped on a bandwagon despite his lack of knowledge and very much fueled by his obvious self-righteousness. And without realizing it, he kept announcing both with his cringe-inducing virtue-signaling about this - and other issues. So much so, that we came to loathe seeing the Blowhard approach us yet again. Especially as I personally like to focus my own efforts on protecting a woman's bodily autonomy or raising the minimum wage, things that could have actual impact - beyond making white liberals feel good about themselves.
And then the Israel-Palestine conflict flared yet again in 2023, and my partner and I witnessed these elderly "liberals" demonstrate that they're not so liberal after all. For not only did we sit through sermons that pandered to the Jewish members in the congregation, we also had conversations with UU members who clearly thought themselves to be on the progressive side of history - while being Pro-Israel! So you can imagine how unsettled they seemed to be upon learning that we - like much of our generation - do not view the conflict the same way. I guess hoping they'd learned from their contemporary, the incredible Jimmy Carter, was too much to hope? Anyway, after enduring one too many sermons and conversations that reflected this generational divide, we were done attending services and coffee hours. For we realized that while UU'ers may be liberal for their generation, that does not make them especially liberal in ours. And certainly not in the generation below ours. What's more, we consistently detected a deep defensiveness (versus genuine accountability or even just curiosity) about their church's utter lack of diversity in terms of age, race and class. This of course means that they are then utterly unwilling to wrestle with the impact of that lack of diversity or the fact that the church serves as an echo chamber. An elderly, white and middle class echo chamber. And UU'ers can do their cutesy identification of their pronouns at the altar or lectern, but that kind of liberalism is ultimately just performative - just as the "empathy" behind it is conditional as it doesn't ultimately cost one anything to practice. But recognize colonization, apartheid and genocide? Or, God forbid, openly wrestle with your own privilege and resulting cluelessness about...So.Many.Issues? That didn't seem to happen during our time in UU land.
But now we felt stuck as we'd joined a church potluck group and even volunteered to act as conveners for the group. Ugh. (Between our weekly donations and now this, we were starting to feel like our church was taking a whole lot more than it was giving.) We nevertheless decided to honor our commitment and forged ahead. But when we went to look at who we'd been paired with, we were dismayed to realize we’d not only been placed in a group of people ALL a couple of decades older than us, but that we'd also been paired with the Blowhard! Not wanting to spend our time with him, and wondering about our ability to find much commonality and connection with any of the other retirees at a very different life stage, we decided to be brave and ask for what we wanted versus complaining about what we weren't getting. So we reached out to see if we could be placed in a more diverse (age-wise anyway as, again, our church offered almost no racial diversity) group, citing the fact that we still worked full-time and couldn't meet on the Friday evenings the rest of our now retired group preferred. We were then met with what felt like an inexplicably defensive/rude response from the potluck organizer who delivered a condescending lecture about respecting/enjoying our elders and trying the group we'd been placed in before opting out. Worse, we later learned that this organizer had gossiped about our request, making us even less impressed with the culture of our church - and w/ her later apology for her rudeness (though not for her poor boundaries). Nevertheless, we still felt an unfortunate sense of obligation (we're both working on that tendency in ourselves, btw!) and carried on-something we also came to regret.
First off, it quickly became clear that two members were not in positions to host (being in retirement homes) while another one (the Blowhard!) was an anxious/poorly prepared host and asked to meet at restaurants before and after hosting just once. Secondly, and more importantly, by only a couple of dinners in, we realized that absent one lovely man and one lovely woman, our group of 7 elderly UU'ers was filled with personalities very similar to the Blowhard's. Meaning that they seemed to be fueled by the exact same off-putting self-righteousness which is in itself fueled by 1) insecurity 2) a lack of knowledge and 3) a desire to appear superior.
So the insecurity would show up in that they'd be very self-promoting about their various volunteer efforts (always dressed up as "activism") which was beyond tedious. The lack of knowledge would show up just as it had with the Blowhard's voting rights push, but also in relation to things like what was driving the conservative vote (authoritarianism, not just a lack of education as they'd incorrectly posit) or by stating that my immigrant partner's relatively homogenous home country was "diverse" because he, well, seemed "diverse" to them by virtue of being a POC. And the desire to appear superior was especially apparent as the self-promotion would prompt competitiveness which would then prompt rude questions and dismissiveness about one another's efforts, experiences and connections. For instance, when my partner mentioned that I grew up as a minority in my hometown's school system, we were both amazed to witness zero curiosity about this (minus from the one lovely man in our group) but obvious competitiveness/dismissiveness instead. As if some weird desire to be the most "woke" of all was at play. It was exhausting. For we now felt like these people who'd both grown up in very homogenous places and settled in very homogenous places, nevertheless expected to be recognized as something they simply aren't: Sophisticated critical thinkers on issues having to do w/ gender, race and class. And the final two incidents that caused us to leave the church altogether proved that in spades.
First, during one especially awful dinner, the Blowhard engaged in sexist mansplaining that involved him asserting - to a table filled with women who've never had a member of their own gender represent them as President, and have now watched two qualified women lose to an utterly unqualified man accused of rape not once but twice - that racism is more pervasive than sexism. And what happened? Not a single one of these so-called "activists" pushed back on that assertion. Instead, he let out a thoroughly dysregulated shriek of "What?!" when I conveyed my gut-level response to his mansplaining with an almost involuntary scoffing sound. Yet, there was no guilt. No remorse. No concern that he'd made a sexist or even an offensive comment. Had he or anyone bothered to further inquire, I would have reminded him and them that sexism exists in every culture while homogenous cultures experience less racism. But his sexism and his rudeness - and the permission they granted him to be both - shocked me into silence.
Next, and during our final potluck, the Blowhard actually took the opportunity to center himself, an old white man, in a story having to do with women’s safety in the world. And, again, not a single one of those so-called "activists" pushed back. In fact, his one female friend even egged him on! Of course, she'd already proven the psych concept that like attracts like. For, like him, she was more than slightly ridiculous in that she too identified as an "activist" as opposed to the reality: someone who'd failed to launch a true career, but was privileged enough to be a sort of volunteer/protestor - just one with a blog that screamed, "look at me"! And I write this as someone who has had a career working on behalf of abused women and children for most of my adult life, but would never identify as an activist because I've worked alongside true activists and know the incredible price they have and do pay, both practically and emotionally. So listening to her, well, brag about getting arrested at various protests, while not recognizing that she has the luxury of being arrested w/out any fear of losing her livelihood (among other things) was beyond grating. To give this even more context, she and the Blowhard had actually interviewed one another about their various volunteer efforts for their little town newsletters in order to feed their mutual self-importance. So I suppose it's a small wonder that the UU principles don't seem to even consider the evil of deeply-rooted sexism, something especially shameful considering who just entered the oval office. Maybe because some of these privileged UU'ers seem to have just woken up to the reality of racism in 2020?! So is sexism and classism simply too much for them to contend with?! Will that start next year then?
Finally, my partner and I do of course appreciate that not every UU church is like this one. But we also wonder how many there are that are exactly like this one as we found the culture deeply depressing and the exact opposite of what we needed in terms of commonality, connection and community after surviving painful losses. And we've since agreed that if a church attracts a certain kind of demographic (white, elderly, middle to upper middle class) and then a certain kind of personality (self-righteous), it has to both cater to and reckon with both. But, from our view, the church is simply failing to ask people to look inward as opposed to only looking outward. And in doing so, it is also failing to recognize that the Unitarian Universalist church doesn't just have a diversity problem. It has a self-righteousness problem.
WWUUD stream 
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